1) Field of the Invention
The invention herein relates to an electronic device battery holder, especially to an electronic device battery holder of the structure in one-piece manufactured by plastic injection molding.
2) Description of the Prior Art
In an age of global information technology and the prolific development of electronics industry, various high technology computer-related products and electronic equipment have been rapidly developed to provide people greater living conveniences. Moreover, as a diverse range of electronic equipment is continually released, the demand for consumer electronic products is getting higher and higher. Therefore, whether the future consumer electronic products able to provide greater convenience and service has become a means of evaluating the sales of the electronic products and determining if the manufacturers thereof are leading beyond others. As a result, in response to the immense market demand for electronic products, high technology companies are not only maintaining product quality, but at the same time also ramping up production rates. In other words, each production line segment affects the acceleration of finishing speed, especially battery holder fabrication, which has become an important factor in increasing electronic product assembly speed. Since competition between electronics manufacturers is fierce, if production line finishing speed is not sufficient to gain a leading market position, such companies will be eliminated by harsh competition.
To facilitate the assembly of a positive contact (for example, a flat spiral spring) and a negative contact (for example, a helical spring), the battery holder of conventional electronic equipment is not of one-piece by using plastic injection molded construction, but formed as a compartment recessed on a lower case, with the upper section of the said compartment remaining hollow. As a result, the battery holder on an upper case must have a recess formed at an appropriate position matching with the said compartment such that when the said upper case and the said lower case are conjoined, the said recess becomes the upper section of the said compartment and, thereby, forming a completed battery holder within the electronic equipment.
However, since the said upper case and lower case are formed by injection utilizing two sets of molds, their fabrication and assembly processes consume much time as well as labor and, furthermore, occasional dimension discrepancies between the said compartment and the said recess results in conjoinment impossibility and defective products, overall production cost is significantly increased and can actually be attributed to serious design shortcomings. As the said battery holder is assembled from the said upper and lower case and, furthermore, the position of the said compartment and the said recess must be in exact alignment and consistency, this imposes considerable restrictions on the dimensions of the circuit board housed inside the said electronic equipment. If the dimensions of the said circuit board cannot be altered or substituted, the manufacturer must enlarge the physical size of the said upper and lower case, which is also another design shortcoming that runs counter to the manufacturing concept of reducing cost to achieve high efficiency and exceptional results.
In view of the fact that the conventional battery holder is not of one-piece, plastic injection molded construction, but consists of an upper case and a lower case that are separately injection molded and thus have to be assembled before the said battery holder is constituted, therefore, its fabrication and assembly processes consumes much time and labor and, furthermore, two molds are required and after the injected fabrication of the compartment and recess, occasional conjoinment impossibility also increases overall production cost, the invention herein addresses these and other shortcomings with an electronic device battery holder structure that was successfully developed based on extensive research and experimentation.
The said structure is comprised of a case of one-piece construction, the said case having an opening formed in its exterior lateral surface as well as another opening formed in its interior lateral surface; a compartment disposed in the said case such that one portion of the said compartment is aligned with and contiguous to the position of the said opening and its other portion is aligned with and contiguous to the position of the said other opening, the said compartment having internally situated a minimum of one or more battery holders that enable the sequential installation of a plurality of batteries from the said opening into the said battery holders, wherein a first insertion contact seat is situated at one end of the said battery holders proximal to the position of the said opening and a second insertion contact seat is situated at the position of the other opening proximal to the opposite end, with a slot formed in the top of the said second insertion contact seat; a minimum of one or more first electrical contacts that are fitted into the said first insertion contact seat; and a minimum of one or more second electrical contacts that are fitted into the said second insertion seat through the said slot.